WHAT ABOUT THE K WORD?
Too much water summer Frankenstorm
Hemmed in greyday traffic lights out
Take your chances with monster trucks
& trains without handbrakes on
Apocalyptic flashes over the Chocolate Factory
Claustrophobia alights during blackout
and beyond Are you watching the Zimmerman trial?
they ask Race riots predicted New show on CNN
(The N Word) gets picked up for a 2nd season
__
Hey I’m not a Kike I’m Greek
Girls Season 2 HBO
Mid-Summer 2013
SHUT D FONK UP
trucks jackhammers
Barenaked Ladies
Rush
crass cafe sitters
twitter-ers
newspapers
constant backyard dog
haters naysayers
sat a.m. dad braying like a donkey
__
Mid-Summer 2013
DON’T BOX ME IN
Living in a 6,825 sq. ft. HOUSE
What will I do with all of the s p a c e
they want to know Well insulated
from them I will open & close a multitude
of doors leading into the innermost sanctum
Like those gift boxes where the box keeps getting
smaller as you search for the treasure so shall
the rooms until I am in a space not much bigger
than myself And in this room I will make preparations
__
Summer 2013
AT LEAST HE DIDN’T SUFFA
Leafy cemetery looks cool shady inviting?
Chiaroscuro coaxing me in Funereal garden goads
I gave up memoir so that my flights of baroque should not
trouble my professors However Tony Soprano died yesterday
Could this be the meaning of the prophesy? You know of those ducks
The ones who landed in his pool He is out of the game now
No longer paralyzed by the fear of death No longer looking over his shoulder
__
Summer 2013
DOCTOR HEAL THYSELF
So did you skip out of there? You know
the specialist reprieve? Not really No
The doctor looked at me skeptically when
I said: I don’t take street drugs Ditto for:
Not depressed He must have guessed that
I need street drugs to deal with all that I have seen
What’s your work? ChildPsychotherapy
Oh what kinds of problems? abuse kidnapping trauma death
Then he retracted his skepticism and became morose
Turns out his mother is happy but losing her cognitive abilities
__
Summer 2013
LET DOWN YOUR HAIR
A pair of cardinals lived in the gulley
by our tree They arrived in winter and
looked like pools of blood in the snow
I thought the ruby one should be the girl
and still don’t really know why she can’t
The girls I know want more than pretty plumage
Size counts and depth Smooth moves stick handling
good dangling & knowledge of knots
__
Summer 2013
HIPSTERS NEED THERAPY TOO
Why is everyone in this town so angry ?
Driving along West Queen West away
from the so hip it hurts Art & Design
District Out of the corner of my eye
I spied a weatherbeaten resident of our
local Mental Health Centre limping along
Stopping every few steps to screeeetch out her
tortured song part human part loon In one
hand a black pork-pie which she tried on the
passers by Along came a tall Godiva tie-dyed
maxi flapping in the breeze so hip so clean (a meanmachine)
And as the ragged queen approached her
balance now precarious a slight bump ensued
Lean mean Godiva delivered a hard slap to
our heroine’s head People gathered I pulled
over and was seized by a vision and not a little dread
New York May 2012 36th floor windows
look onto windows look onto more windows no sky
4 monarchs float by in the negative space high above the world
And I wonder how they will make it to Mexico
__
Spring 2013
THE GHOST OF BILL BARILKO
She’s spanking the baby Jesus her halo
fallen to the floor De Chirico reveals an
ungainly Mary tampering with sacred cows
I see the faces of Leaf Nation shivering in ecstasy
by the hundreds There is no religion for which
they would congregate en masse On second thought
their open mouths and gnashing teeth a new kind of
worship Genuflecting at the ACC under the glow of the JUMBOTRON
__
*Hockey is the 2nd biggest threat to organized religion & western civilization
Spring 2013
DREAMING IT FORWARD
I am hoping it will all end in a quiet room
in a heritage village by a lake Yesterday
I saw a woman fall backward to the floor
She fell so heavily I expected blood and ruin
The sound was part gasp part thudgrowl Then someone opened champagne
__
Spring 2013
RE-MOTHER ME
She was 19 and undiagnosable
She would flail and shout and thrash about
And I was desperate to do something to help her
One day as we sat in her pee (unbeknownst to me)
a calm came over her one that all of my flapping
up in the windowsill could not produce (desperate therapist works it)
And there we sat for 45 minutes while she rocked
contentedly Like a baby in a wet diaper whose mother is near
__
*many neglected infants are hospitalized for bleeding diaper rash
and cannot be comforted during treatment
Spring 2013
songanddancegirl... at 4
